OREANDA-NEWS. Severstal, one of the world's largest vertically integrated steel and mining companies is pleased to announce that following extensive reconstruction, it has today officially brought back into commercial operation the cold rolling mill with four stands, at the rolling and annealing plant of the Group’s Cherepovets Steel Mill.

Over the course of this 3 bln ruble project, the whole equipment complex has been updated and a new automated cold rolling mill built. The renovation project included the gas fire station, the central control station, two roll-grinding machines, the installation of the texturing of the work rolls, stand of erection of work and backup rolls as well as four complete transformer substations.

Sergey Toropov, CEO of the Severstal Russian Steel, commented: "This investment into the reconstruction of the cold rolling mill with four stands at Cherepovets Steel Mill is extremely important, both in terms of maintaining our fixed assets but also in terms of the Group’s business development and commitment to the improvement of our customer-oriented approach. The newly modernized mill will increase production of cold-rolled sheet by 200 th. tonnes per year, that equals 20% of annual volume. In addition, the operational commissioning of the new equipment will facilitate the enlargement of our product range and improve product quality”.

Through 100% automation, the axial shift system of the rolls and the presence of two flatness rollers, the new mill will produce metal 800 to 1850 mm wide and 0.4 to 3.2 mm thick. The annual project capacity of the mill is 1.3 mln. tonnes of rolled products. The main customers for these new hardware products will be the automotive industry, manufacturers of «white goods» and the building industry.

The mill reconstruction project was completed by the affiliate companies the Severstal Russian Steel. The Centre of the implementation of investment projects exercised the leadership, the Severstal-Project led the project development and the Centre Domnaremont was the general contractor. A further 10 contractual companies of the Vologda region were also involved in the working process.

SMS Siemag AG (Germany) has carried out the supply of the main technological equipment of the new continuous mill with four stands, as well as the supply of the basic and detailed engineering.

The first roll made by new mill with four stands was shipped to the key customer - the Gorky Automobile Plant of the GAZ Group.